In Pictures: Tommy Lee's Motley Crue drum rollercoaster

In Pictures: Tommy Lee's drum rollercoaster

As Motley Crue continue their reality-defying world tour (stopping off for a run of suitably sinful Las Vegas shows) we've taken a look around Tommy's unbelievable drum rollercoaster riser.

In Pictures: Tommy Lee's drum rollercoaster

Creating the monster

Tommy's tech Chris 'JC' Dries on creating the drum rollercoaster:

“Viggy [Vignola] did a whole lot of work in Los Angeles. He went to Kevin Bligh at Pearl’s West Coast office and he had all of Tommy’s stuff there. Tommy and Kevin sat for probably two or three days building this kit. Viggy has been with Tommy for years so he had all these weld plates made, special snare stands made, all kinds of stuff. I feel bad I wasn’t part of that but now for our Las Vegas tour we’re doing a lot of crazy stuff too, so I’m involved in all of that.”

In Pictures: Tommy Lee's drum rollercoaster

Keep it locked down

JC: “There’s a lot of elements because everything’s welded down. There’s special weld plates, snare stands that are mounted to the riser that were specially made to fit with Pearl’s hardware. Everything is locked down with lighting safeties all over the riser. It’s an amazing feat."

In Pictures: Tommy Lee's drum rollercoaster

Round and round

JC: "Maxonix make us a zero gravity drum stick holder so those are mounted all over the kit. That makes sure he has sticks when he’s going upside down!"

In Pictures: Tommy Lee's drum rollercoaster

Travel in style

JC: "The riser is too big to fit in a sea container so I had to chop everything off at 33 inches and put a lid on it and send it on air freight all around the world. It flies probably better class than I do when I’m flying!”

In Pictures: Tommy Lee's drum rollercoaster

Take it down

JC: “After the show I work with SGPS who do the rollercoaster and the rigging. We take down the rollercoaster in 20 minutes.”

In Pictures: Tommy Lee's drum rollercoaster

Want more?

For much more on Tommy and the drum rollercoaster look out for our huge Tommy Lee cover feature coming in the March issue of Rhythm, on sale 14 February.